fnatic should have breezed through Spirit of Amiga on paper. The Swedish team have had an incredible year which has seen them in finals even for the tournaments they've lost. SoA on the other hand didn't even qualify for DreamHack and were awarded an invite at the last minute practically. However, the Swedes found themselves in a back and forth game in the first half as the Danes continued to find ways to successfully wins rounds. fnatic turned it up a notch though as terrorists and won the game before it got too out of control.

fnatic 16:11 Spirit of Amiga (train 7:8 9:3)

First half
SoA took the pistol round in a scenario which found dsn 1v1 as CT against a planted bomb, at which point he decided to try and go for a straight defuse against a player above the inside ladder who peeked and killed him. The Danes took the next eco as one may expect but then ran into trouble as fnatic gambled and gave two of their players colts and two famases. The gamble paid off and fnatic were able to win the round as a 3v3 turned into a 3v2 which turned into a 2v2 and then saw GuX kill both SoA players to get his team right back into the game.

fnatic wasted no time and ran up five more rounds in a row. The 8th even saw GuX acing an ecoing SoA team. With the score at 6:2 for fnatic the Danes got back into control with a 2v2 round which became a 1v1 faagan was able to win. The next two rounds also went the way of the Danish team to make the score 6:% to fnatic. When GuX won another 2v2 situation and sat at 18-5 on the scoreboard in the 12th one could be forgiven for seeing fnatic take over the last few rounds and build a lead going into the second half. In fact it would be SoA from there on out as the Danes won two in a row to tie the score and then with f0rest unable to even buy a gun SoA took the last to finish the half with a lead.


Second half

Despite the lead being stolen in the last round fnatic did that 'fnatic reset' thing they can do where they completely forget about the previous half and just play their game. The pistol round went to the Swedes with f0rest winning a 1v2 with his USP thanks to the non-defusing CT attempting to go to the standard upper spot inside of the lower ramp where f0rest sat waiting for an opportunity to peek. fnatic really got their offensive side rolling and as many a team have found out this year fnatic on train T side can be a very tough matchup for anyone. fnatic put the score at 6:0 for the half and now had a 13:8 overall lead. The 6th round saw GuX winning a 1v1 and continuing the clutch play he had established in the first half.

SoA had some life left in them as they took three rounds, including the 8th round where f0rest killed ArcadioN with an incredible single bullet shot onto a pixel of his head seemingly. However, Friis' AWP took down the last two fnatic. SoA got the score to 6:3 to fnatic and 13:11 overall, still some room to operate and go for a draw at least. At that point though fnatic were not to be denied and they tore the last three rounds they needed off.

The pattern of fnatic's terrorist side was a lot of outside pushes which SoA could not handle as they had to face GuX and f0rest's rifles which provided solid cover for any fnatic players to move around the backalley area and flank bomb train or 5 train players.

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(Photograph copyright of HLTV.org)